


Deck the Halls

by forthegreatergood



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Holidays, Light Angst, M/M, Mistletoe, Mutual Pining, Pining, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:21:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22054744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forthegreatergood/pseuds/forthegreatergood
Summary: Crowley and Aziraphale are both gunning for a kiss under the mistletoe, and it wouldn’t do at all to cheat their way into it.Crowley cocked his head. “What in Satan’s name are youdoing?”“Mending a book,” Aziraphale said, his tone going firm. “It requires patience and focus and not being interrupted.”“Why not just, y’know…?” Crowley held up his hand and pantomimed a snap. “Good as new, none of this faffing about.”“Some things are worth doing the right way,” Aziraphale reminded him, turning back to the binding.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 68
Kudos: 354





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Elsajeni](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsajeni/gifts).



> This fic was written for the [mistletoe prompt](https://elsajeni.tumblr.com/post/189810606630/wheeloffortune-design-wheeloffortune-design) over on tumblr, where it was also cross-posted in a series of ten sections.
> 
> * * *
> 
> All characters property of Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, and the respective production and licensing companies.
> 
> Big thank-you to [foxyk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxyk/pseuds/foxyk) for the quick post-tumblr beta!

“Oi, angel, where’re you at?”

Aziraphale looked up from his stitching at the sound of Crowley bellowing from the front of the shop. He’d never have figured such a thin chest for producing such a loud shout, but he supposed that was demons for you.

“I’m back here,” he called, adjusting his grip on the tweezers. The last thing he needed right now was a distraction, but then again it wasn’t as if he’d rung Crowley up and told Crowley that he’d be busy this afternoon. He was still getting used to the idea that he should, that Crowley’s visits could come thick and fast enough to warrant notice when Aziraphale would be unavailable. 

It was an odd thought, wasn’t it? Odd, and warm, and painful in an odd and warm way, like sitting in front of the fire when he’d let his corporation’s fingers and toes get a little colder than was strictly good for them.

“Ah!” Crowley said from the doorway. He sounded delighted with himself for finding Aziraphale, as if it had been some great hunt. “There you are.”

Aziraphale risked a glance up from his work and found Crowley sporting a delirious grin, the sort of smile that had historically preceded some of his worst and most dangerous ideas. It was a terrible shame, since it was the sort of smile that saw the demon at his most handsome--eyes bare and bright, cheeks pink and rounded, hair escaping its braid in the most fetching manner--but there really wasn’t anything else for it. Aziraphale had plans, and those plans very decidedly did not include suffering through a repeat of the Great Emu War or that nonsense with the Dutch markets and the tulips and whatever was still going on with the giant straw goats and those poor Swedes.

“No.”

“Wh--” The grin fell off Crowley’s face like ice coming off a windowpane. “I haven’t even _asked_ , angel!”

“You haven’t, but I know that face.” Aziraphale gave him a stern look. “Whatever it is, however good your reasons are, the answer is still no.”

“I should hope you know my face after six thousand bloody years--” Crowley stopped, his eyes suddenly narrow. “This isn’t about that fucking Yule goat, is it? Because I’ll have you know nobody’s burned it in going on three years.”

“Oh?” Aziraphale asked, sighing. “Well, surely all’s forgiven, then.”

“That’s a tenth of the average human lifespan, angel, and I think I can be graced a few straw goats after saving the whole blessed world.” Crowley cocked his head. “What in Satan’s name are you _doing_?”

“Mending a book,” Aziraphale said, his tone finally going firm. “It requires patience and focus and not being interrupted.”

“Why not just, y’know…?” Crowley held up his hand and pantomimed a snap. “Good as new, none of this faffing about.”

“Some things are worth doing the right way,” Aziraphale reminded him, turning back to the binding. He’d almost lost his place with all his fiddling, and it was probably a different sort of miracle that he hadn’t put too much pressure on the paper with the tweezers, padded though they were.

Crowley grimaced at him and huffed. “Fine, Satan knows I’m not going to talk you out of _that_ opinion any time soon. Supposed your barber and tailor would go broke if I ever did, and we can’t have that going on at this time of year.”

A tin thunked down on the bookshelf near the door, and Aziraphale closed his eyes and bit back a sigh of the more pointed, frustrated variety.

“ _Any_ -way, I’m only here because I’ll be out of town for a bit, and I need someone responsible to keep Morris here from kicking off before Kew opens back up and he’s their problem.”

Aziraphale blinked unseeing at the work in front of him, then turned to look at Crowley. “What do you mean?”

“Morris.” Crowley held up a small spindly-looking plant that seemed half-dead already. “I need someone responsible to keep him alive until the relevant professionals over at Kew are back from wherever it is botanists go on holiday. Morris, Someone Responsible. Someone Responsible, Morris. Now that introductions are out of the way--”

“I don’t know the first thing about keeping plants,” Aziraphale protested, trying to wade through the torrent of Crowley’s nonsense. “And what do you mean, you’ll be out of town for a bit? I thought...”

He’d thought they’d be spending the holidays together. It seemed only right, this first winter with no one to answer to and no petty errands to run. He’d been looking forward to miracling the Pancha Ganapati garlands into staying spry and verdant and the Hanukkah candles bright and ever-burning and keeping the Christmas trees from shedding needles everywhere. 

It had already been delightful, bustling around with all the crowds and easing people’s worries and cares. He’d lost track of all the runny noses and coughs he’d healed, all the oyster cards he’d replenished on the sly, all the odds and bobs of cash people had suddenly found in the pockets of their winter coats. Little things, but it really didn’t take much at all to make most humans so much happier than they’d been the moment before or to banish a worry that had been plaguing them.

Aziraphale scoffed, realizing that Crowley expected him to finish the sentence. “I thought we might spend the holidays here in London.”

Crowley wrinkled his nose. “Really? I’d thought you’d be well rid of all the nonsense Heaven encourages these days. I mean, you were there--you know blessed well it’s nowhere near Jesus’s birthday.”

“No, but that’s not really the point of most of it, is it?” Aziraphale asked gently. Most of the actual trappings were from Yule, anyway, and he’d always loved a good Yule celebration. It had been almost as good as Saturnalia. “It’s the whole, ah, togetherness aspect. The joviality, then generosity, the--”

“Sweetmeats and cakes?” Crowley interrupted, laughing. “Oh, don’t give me that look. That one time I asked for a taste of your savillum back in Rome, I honestly didn’t think you’d let me. Generosity, indeed.”

Aziraphale’s cheeks turned scarlet. He’d thought Crowley’s request had been innuendo, at the time. It had seemed only natural, for a demon. Funny now, looking back on it like that--they’d been at liberty for months and months, and Crowley had yet to do anything more intimate than thread his arm around Aziraphale’s, linking elbows, on the occasional walk through St James’s Park.

“The joy and goodwill toward all creation,” Aziraphale finished stiffly, shooting him a wounded glance.

“All right, all right,” Crowley said, holding up the hand not occupied with Morris’s pot. “Have it your way. You want to swan around caroling and handing out mulled wine and… ‘s not too late for dreidels and sufganiyot, is it?”

“Starts in a few days,” Aziraphale told him.

“Then have at it,” Crowley continued. “Just, no Yule logs or Santa Lucia crowns, eh? At least not this year?”

Aziraphale put down his needle and very carefully reinforced the spot he’d been working on, then set the tweezers down, too. He’d really thought that Crowley might _want_ to spend the holidays with him. “When will you be back, then?”

“Twenty-third, I should think. Christmas Eve at the latest,” Crowley said, the grin creeping back across his face. “If Morris misbehaves, just give him a bit of a scolding, tell him you’re disappointed in him or something. Call him a foul fiend.”

Aziraphale flinched at that, and Crowley frowned.

“Or don’t!” he said quickly. “It’s all the same to me, so long as he’s still alive when I get back.”

“Do you need me to drop by your flat and see to any of the others?” Aziraphale offered weakly. He’d had such high hopes, hadn’t he? Then again, he supposed it was his fault for letting them build up like that, for letting his daydreams get away from him. He should have at least checked with Crowley before he set his sights so high.

“Nah, they’re fine.” Crowley waved his hand dismissively. “Morris here’s the only turncoat of the bunch.” Crowley scowled affectionately at the tiny plant. “Supposed to be a devil’s backbone, the little bugger.”

Aziraphale’s brows furrowed. “Supposed to be?”

“Mmm. Had him for years, done nothing but break my back to feed and shelter and water him, and then finally he flowers, and what do I find? He’s not even a euphorbia.”

“What is it, then?” Aziraphale couldn’t help but be a little curious. Crowley had said it was bound for Kew--surely there was someplace a little less prestigious that could identify it, if Crowley couldn’t.

“Fuck if I--or anyone else--knows, at the moment,” Crowley grumbled. “I ran it past a few greenhouses, got nothing. Escalated to a few working botanists I know, nothing. Finally emailed my woman at Kew, got asked if I had my CITES permit in order.”

“Well?” Aziraphale asked primly. “Do you?”

Crowley glared at him. “He started life as a cutting from some Miami moneybags’s pleasure garden, last time I had to go to America. CITES doesn’t enter into it.”

Aziraphale looked more closely at the poor plant. What a shock it must have been, going from a pampered life in a tropical paradise to Crowley’s flat. He felt a bit sorry for it, snatched from its loving gardeners only to be installed in a gray stone cavern like a trophy, given everything that was needed except affection and a gentle touch.

“I suppose I can look after it for a little bit, if you need,” Aziraphale said finally.

“All I need, angel. I’ll be back before you know it.” Crowley prowled back out into the main room, eyeing the windows and sniffing the air judgmentally before settling on a spot and carefully putting down the pot. “Here we go.”

“Absolutely not,” Aziraphale groaned, his gaze tracing the path any spilled water would follow.

“Nowhere else will do,” Crowley retorted. “And stop fretting--in the unlikely event that you need to top him up, the tray is perfectly waterproof and advertised as spill-proof. Mind, I can’t see a way to test the claim that Morris would live through, so I’d be obliged if you didn’t try.”

Aziraphale tugged at the bottom of his waistcoat and frowned. Set there, the plant looked even more pathetic than it had nestled in the crook of Crowley’s elbow. “Crowley--”

“It’s just for a few days, angel.” Crowley was already halfway toward the door. “Have fun with the goodwill and the cheer and the not killing Morris!”

“Crowley!” Aziraphale tried again. If he put a bit of steel into his voice this time, maybe Crowley would stop and listen for once.

“Ta!” Crowley grinned back at him, waving and sweeping out the door on his way to God only knew what mischief.

Aziraphale deflated and ran his fingers through his hair, watching the retreating figure through the fogged glass. He closed his eyes and took a long, slow, deep breath.

“Crowley, it would be ever so lovely if you could come out with me tonight. I want to go ice skating. I haven’t been in years, because it was too frivolous to use miracles to keep myself upright, and it was lonely when I wanted you with me but couldn’t take the risk of asking you. Will you come with me? Do say yes, my dear.” He glanced at the mystery plant in its supposedly waterproof pot and shook his head. It didn’t get cold in Miami, did it? And Crowley had hauled the little plant here through the cold and the wind. At least he’d managed to pick the warmest place in the shop that wasn’t right next to Aziraphale’s hotplate. “I know _you_ don’t want to go ice skating with me, poor thing.”

Aziraphale took a closer look at the pot. Just a few days, Crowley had said. He’d be back by the 23rd. Of course, if he’d only be gone for such a little bit, why leave the plant with someone at all? Surely it couldn’t need care as intensive as all that? Aziraphale studied the leaves, which looked a bit curled, and then ran his fingers over the top of the soil.

“Dry!” he huffed to himself. “In the unlikely event I need to water you, my foot. He might have taken care of it before he left, the villain.”

Aziraphale scooped up the pot and felt around in his pocket for something to mark the spot. Crowley had been so particular about it; he’d be put out if he came back and found the plant anywhere else. Aziraphale’s fingers closed around the smooth foil of a chocolate gelt, and his mouth tugged into a smile. He hadn’t meant to buy such a big bag of them that he’d miss a few slipping out, but he’d been in such a good mood…

He put the coin down where the pot had been and carried it back to the kitchenette.

“We’ll soon get you watered, won’t we?” he murmured. It wasn’t like Crowley to be so negligent. Aziraphale checked the thought. Crowley did as Crowley pleased, unless someone had given Crowley a compelling reason not to. One small plant--a stolen one, at that--probably wasn’t enough to demand the demon’s attention and make him mend his ways.

Aziraphale ran the tap, waiting for the water to warm enough that he wouldn’t give the little thing hypothermia, and then smiled as he gave it a good soaking.

“There you are,” he told it. “Right as rain now, aren’t you?”

He wiped the water from the outside of the pot and put it back, adding a porcelain dish underneath the whole thing just in case Crowley’s waterproof pot wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. The droplets glistening on the leaves refracted the colored lights Aziraphale had strung over one of the shelves containing less carefully-guarded books, and Aziraphale smiled.

The smile faded as his earlier thought returned. Crowley did as Crowley pleased. They’d been free of constraint since September. If Crowley was going to ask for something more, he’d have done it by now, and that meant that it was on Aziraphale to…

Aziraphale sighed and shook his head. To make a fool of himself trying to tease a display of affection out of one of the Fallen, probably. There had always been a sharp edge to Crowley’s kindnesses, a bitter undercurrent to his blandishments. It didn’t matter if he was mending Aziraphale’s coat or bowing and asking for the honor of a dance, there was an ironic distance to it that Aziraphale had never been able to close.

Well, Aziraphale could work with that, couldn’t he? His eyes went to the lintel over the door to the back room. Every hopeless romantic this time of year was hanging mistletoe all over everything. He’d just pick up a generous sprig from a shop, pin it up where Crowley was fond of lingering, and point it out when the demon turned back up for his plant. If Aziraphale had any hope of more than the occasional arm in his on a quiet stroll in the park, then Crowley would seize on the excuse and sigh and smirk and pretend to give in to an angel’s cajoling. And if Aziraphale didn’t, well--at least he’d know.

Aziraphale squared his shoulders and reached for his coat. There was a florist on the way to a lovely light display, and it was beginning to get a bit dark. He’d pop into the shop and pick up their best sprig of mistletoe, and then he’d go and enjoy the lights.

* * *

Crowley cracked his neck and stretched his arm across the back of the bentley’s passenger seat. Three months, and Aziraphale still had to be wheedled into doing even the smallest of favors for him. 

Maybe this whole thing was a fool’s errand. He was going to go freeze his balls off or break his neck trying to do this right--and the angel wasn’t wrong, with his fussy little statement about some things needing to be done the old-fashioned way--and for nothing. For a sad little moue and a pair of soft hands tucked into one another and a soft “Oh.” sounding like a death knell through a comfortable bookshop that had no right to still exist.

“Now, now,” he chided himself, taking a deep breath. “None of that.”

He had to stay positive, at least about this. He didn’t have any illusions to cling to about how long it would take Heaven and Hell to regroup and start looking for some new path to Armageddon, or how likely he and Aziraphale were to make it out unscathed once they found something. But Aziraphale wasn’t blushing anymore when Crowley reached for his hand, or going stiff and shallow-breathed when Crowley took the angel’s elbow, or nervously casting about for anyone who might see when Crowley walked into the shop. Going slow was, in fact, paying off.

Crowley’s fingers tightened on the back of the seat reflexively. Maybe next year Aziraphale would be in it, laughing merrily at something Crowley had said, cheeks bright from the cold or from the blast of the heater because it had been cold. Maybe next year Aziraphale would be in it, eyes fixed on the horizon because they were on holiday together, and he couldn’t wait to see what darling little bungalow Crowley had found for them. 

There would be a basket in his lap, filled to the brim with wine and cheese and little delicacies that only got trotted out this time of year. They’d stop at a bonfire and think only of how warm the wine was in their bellies, of how warm their hands were with their fingers twined together. He’d lean in to kiss Aziraphale, and the newness would have worn off to the point that the angel only went soft and longing under it, no residual shock or fear in his frame at all. Crowley could sit down and pull Aziraphale into his lap, feel that soft rump settled comfortably across his thighs, wrap his arms around that lovely waist, rest his head on those strong shoulders. Aziraphale could throw an arm tenderly across his back and look around, utterly content with things.

It would be wonderful, more than wonderful, and it would all start with Aziraphale blushing and stammering under a bough of mistletoe and then finally screwing up his courage and saying _yes_. Aziraphale had been brave enough to hold his hand, brave enough to walk with him in the open, to take his arm and smile at him and let him into the bookshop, and no harm had come of it. Surely Crowley wasn’t such a benighted fool that he’d misread two thousand years of little looks and sneaked glances and shy smiles--Aziraphale wanted to say yes to more than that, so much more.

He just had to be given a chance to do it at his own pace.

“Slow and steady wins the race,” Crowley reminded himself, taking a turn more quickly than was wise. The bentley didn’t miss a millimeter, hugging the road as if it was powered by infernal magic and bloody-minded belief.

On the back seat, Crowley heard the skitter of metal on leather and scowled over his shoulder.

“Oi, you better not be scratching up the leather,” he snapped, as if the sickle could understand him or care.

He probably should have stuck it in a case, or at least a bag, but it seemed almost disrespectful. They’d always been displayed in a place of pride when he’d seen them, or slung from the belt of the priest about to use them. Tossed on the seat of the bentley was maybe not the posh treatment it was supposed to get, but if it was good enough for world-saving prophecies and flaming swords and creation’s most beloved angel, it was probably good enough for a jumped-up farm implement. And it definitely beat being stuffed in a bag, so there was that.

Crowley pushed the pedal back down to the floor, grinning at the way the bentley roared and surged forward. He hadn’t been thinking, really, when he’d first bought it. He’d wanted something that wouldn’t rear up and dump him off in an unholy heap right in front of the angel, and he’d wanted something sleek and beautiful and just a little bit dangerous, and he’d seen the bentley and thought, “That’s it.”

It was only that that had been almost a century ago now, and in the meantime he’d had lots of time to have lots of thoughts about what his car should or shouldn’t be, and the bentley had absorbed rather a lot of them. Crowley patted the back of the seat affectionately. The startled squeak Aziraphale had let out the first time Crowley had given him a ride home--Crowley had almost ruined the whole thing by laughing. His precious angel, stalwart and unyielding in the face of firearms and treachery, but gone pale and wide-eyed from a horseless carriage. Aziraphale had come around since then, but oh what a lovely few years it had been, chauffeuring him from miracle to miracle at speeds the angel was sure their corporations hadn’t been created to withstand.

Crowley smiled at the thought. Aziraphale always needed a bit of time to come around to new ideas, always clung to the old ways longer than was fashionable. Well, it didn’t get much older than mistletoe, not in these parts.

It was a bit of a shame he’d had to turn Aziraphale down on the holiday merrymaking--there was always a least one bastard on his way to sack someone or notify a family they’d be evicted on New Year’s that even the angel couldn’t fault him for making slip on the ice or trip over his own shoelaces--but he wanted this to be a surprise. And provided it didn’t go horribly--provided Aziraphale wasn’t so appalled by the very notion that he cut off all contact--there was always next year. If Aziraphale really didn’t want to kiss him, or hold him, or sit in his lap, there was always whatever saccharine, tinsel-strewn monstrosity Aziraphale _did_ want for them to indulge in.

Crowley smiled, remembering the look on Aziraphale’s face when he’d asked for a bite of the savillum. He hadn’t even wanted it, really--he’d tried it once, and it had been a shade too sweet for his tastes--but he’d wanted so badly for Aziraphale to give it to him that he’d asked anyway. He’d thought Aziraphale might honestly try hiding it under his toga rather than share it, his cheeks had gone so pink and his grip on the plate had gone so firm. 

It had been such fun afterwards, finding things Aziraphale wanted to keep all to himself and trying to tease just a bit of it away from him--Aziraphale was never more beautiful than when he was doing as he pleased on his own behalf, that keen mind spinning away in some new situation where the only thing he had to decide was what he wanted to do for himself. And besides, there had been no truer compass to guide Crowley right to something new that was guaranteed to make Aziraphale light up with pleasure than those few decades and the things Aziraphale hadn’t wanted to give him a taste of.

Crowley grinned to himself, remembering how much Aziraphale had loved Saturnalia. They’d had mistletoe kicking around for that, too, hadn’t they? He cranked the radio and threw his head back and laughed when the “Arboria” theme began playing instead of anything resembling a proper song. It was perhaps the biggest reach the bentley had ever managed, but then, it was Christmas, and it was a bloody miracle the car was in one piece at all. If there was ever a time to simply laugh and let it pass, it was now.

Crowley whistled along to what passed for a tune and told himself to enjoy it now, while he was in a comfortable old car instead of halfway up an apple tree in a white sheet, trying not to neuter himself with a sickle.


	2. Chapter 2

“Oh, come on, you pair of hens!” Crowley growled, trying to shoo an unusually determined pair of mistle thrushes away. “It’s stripped! There’s no berries left! What the heaven could you even be after?”

They were probably just trying to warn him not to get his hopes up, he thought sourly. He’d had to give up on having genitals halfway up the tree, the second time he’d almost fallen out of it squashing them against an inconvenient branch. This would be a blessed sight easier if he just changed back into a serpent for it--catch a single bird pestering him _then_ , the cheeky bastards--but he had some faint sense that it would be cheating. And besides, how on earth would he manage the sickle with no hands? He swatted at them with the flat of the blade, making them retreat all of four steps, and clambered onto the branch with the bough he was after.

If this was all for nothing, he decided, he was either going to break down and cry or laugh hysterically. He was very definitely going to treat himself to some stupidly lush bottle of champagne, some indulgent mockery that felt like a whole troupe of Russian ballerinas shuffling gracefully en pointe across his tongue and then hit like Elizabeth Wilkinson as soon as he wasn’t looking. He glared at the bough, golden sickle in hand, wrapped himself around the branch with all four limbs and the full knowledge that there were two angry birds ready and able to challenge him for it.

Crowley took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He thought of Aziraphale’s pink lips, his cheeks turning that delicate shade when he was excited and embarrassed about something in equal measure. He thought of having license to sweep that soft corporation into his arms, tilt that pretty face back, press his lips to that pink cupid’s bow that had been tormenting him for millennia. He thought of holding that vessel in his arms and feeling the scorching pleasure of a principality reaching back across the gulf, yearning for him.

Crowley opened his eyes and scowled at the birds. “I swear to Satan, if you don’t let me fucking have this, I’ll come back in the spring and eat your fucking eggs right out from under you.”

He shimmied forward, not letting go of the branch for a moment. If he fell now, he’d probably hurt himself quite badly, and there’d be no slinking into head office and cadging a replacement this time. The birds retreated truculently, beady little bird eyes locked on him.

“There aren’t any berries on it, you tits,” he spat. He should have brought some fruit with him to distract them. Then again, if he’d sat down and made a list of all the complications he could run into, this wouldn’t have been on it. “There’s nothing at all for you. You’re being stupid.”

Nothing at all for him, either, if he fucked this up. Crowley pushed the thought away. At worst, Aziraphale would pretend not to understand his intent and warble about it being a lovely addition to the shop’s decor and thank Crowley for at least trying to get into the holiday spirit. Crowley wasn’t an idiot--he hadn’t been orbiting the angel for two thousand years just to muff it now. He’d had that little revelation between realizing how blessed cold it was and realizing that there was nothing saying he couldn’t put the white robes on right over his regular clothes.

There would be no dramatic pronouncements, no unmistakable invitations. He’d slap it up, give Aziraphale a chance to have a good long think about it, and then present a couple of unmissable opportunities for the angel to act, if he wanted. If not, there was always next year. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and so forth--the both of them were peeking out from behind walls that had been erected by forces beyond their comprehension and eons in the making, besides. Just because Crowley wanted to smash it all to bits and start fresh didn’t mean Aziraphale hadn’t gotten rather attached to some of it in the meantime, hadn’t developed a healthy fear of being exposed and out in the open.

“Get on with it, you fucking harbingers,” Crowley growled, waving the sickle again. The thrushes retreated another few steps, heads cocked and eyes glinting balefully.

Crowley grinned in triumph as he got the sickle against the mistletoe’s roots. He cut it away from the apple tree, thighs tightening around the branch he was clinging to as his hands freed the mistletoe from its host. He snapped his fingers, and a white cloak appeared below him, stretched like a sail between the lower branches. Crowley dropped his prize carefully, aim impeccable. Whatever Aziraphale might fault him for in the outcome, there’d be nothing of it in the execution. It was as by-the-book as a demon was capable of. He’d even give the sickle a good cleaning before he sneaked it back into the museum he’d pinched it from.

The moment Crowley’s eyes focused past the cloak and to the ground, his conviction wavered. He could have just as easily gotten it from a florist’s shop, couldn’t he? Fucking idiot, always needing to go the extra mile to impress the angel. This was what pre-orders at florists were for; the modern-day equivalent of going about it the right way was paying for it properly, not slithering up a fucking tree in the dead of winter. 

Crowley closed his eyes again and thought of that Heavenly power, that Earthly sweetness, that Hellish defiance, that blend that was like no other being in all the cosmos. Irreplaceable, beautiful, flawlessly flawed angel--Crowley could do this, if it would coax a smile to Aziraphale’s lips.

He steeled himself and shoved the sickle into his belt. All he had to do was shimmy and scoot and budge his way back down to the branches below him. He could gather the cloak, and lower it down, and move in stages. He would be fine.

Crowley brightened. Or. _Or_. 

The mistletoe was harvested. That had all been done according--mostly--to tradition. There was nothing that required him to remain human-shaped as he descended from the tree, was there? Crowley chuckled to himself, pulled the sickle free, and tossed it into the cloak below. He shifted form, snake slithering forth where man had been, and immediately realized how blessed fucking cold it was, all the way up a fucking apple tree in the middle of winter.

He made it down the tree and back into the bentley in record time, his teeth chattering uncontrollably even with the heater running full blast and the extra robes and cloaks all drawn about him like blankets. His tongue was still dry and linty-feeling from carrying the cloak in his mouth, and the moment he’d tried manifesting balls again, they’d tried to demanifest themselves right back again of their own accord. 

“All hail the conquering hero,” he grumbled. When the druids had managed it, they got a hearty backslapping and a big goblet of wine and a party right afterwards. He got a pair of disgruntled, overgrown larks perched on the hood of his car and eyeing him through the windscreen.

He eyed them right back. At least he hadn’t fallen out of the tree, and getting back down out of it as a snake had taken all of two minutes. Two long, cold minutes. 

The mistletoe and the sickle sat on the floorboard in the passenger side, and Crowley couldn’t help smiling around his shivering.

Aziraphale would be pleased when he saw the bough. Pleased when he saw the bough, amused when he heard about the thrushes, scolding when Crowley told him, later, how he’d gotten it. It would be perfect.

Crowley started the car, waited impatiently for the thrushes to get the hint, and then motored away as soon as they did, leaving the apple orchard behind him.

* * *

“What do you mean, you’re out of mistletoe?” Aziraphale asked, lips pursing in disappointment. “Floral Designs swore you’d have plenty in stock!”

They’d meant it, too--he’d felt it in the cashier’s words, as she’d assured him that it would be fine. She’d really believed what she’d been saying, hadn’t just been fobbing him off with directions to a new shop to harass.

“Floral Designs sent you?” the man asked, his own pursed lips a mirror of Aziraphale’s. “We’ll have to call them and let them know, then. We usually do, but a corporate office party cleaned us out this morning.”

“An office party?” Aziraphale asked, slightly horrified by the implications.

“I know, it’s… not what I’d have picked, for my workplace party decor? It’s still a _work_ event, and all. But it’s not really our place to talk them out of bad decisions, just to fill the order with the available stock and warn them not to get it near the food.” The salesman shrugged. “Ah. You could try Cheaper By The Dozen? They--”

“They’re where I started,” Aziraphale said, holding up his hands. “But thank you.”

“How many shops have you tried?”

“You’re my fifth.” Aziraphale’s shoulders slumped. A few had shaken their heads and asked if he’d pre-ordered, as it wasn’t something they carried as typical stock, and the rest had shaken their heads and asked if he’d pre-paid, because it was something they sold out of early in the season.

“Well, I suppose hope springs eternal, but really,” the salesman made a sympathetic face, “it might be time to just buy artificial. I know it’s not as pretty as the real thing, but at least you don’t need to worry about washing up every time you touch it?”

“It’s, well, it’s for a special occasion. I’m afraid artificial wouldn’t feel quite right.” Aziraphale stuck his hands in his pockets and bit his lip. “Oh! I don’t need it for another day or two. Is there any chance your supplier might…”

He broke off when he caught the apology already lurking in the man’s face.

“We only get one shipment for the season,” he explained. “They cut all the mistletoe in one go, and that’s pretty much it. It’s so high up in the trees that it’s kind of a production, and most of our stock comes from orchards and farms, so the farmers don’t want trucks driving around willy-nilly out in their fields.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale’s face fell. If only it had occurred to him earlier that Crowley might respond to this. Well, artificial might not do, but maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to fudge things a bit and miracle some up?

“You know,” the salesman leaned forward, his expression all sympathy and solution, “most people really don’t know what mistletoe is. We get that all the time, from customers who come in asking for mistletoe, and what they’re really after is holly.” He nodded to a display case. “Which we’ve got oodles of.”

Aziraphale turned, knowing as he followed the man’s gaze that it wouldn’t do. Crowley had a whole network of plant people at his beck and call; he’d know immediately what Aziraphale had done. “No, thank you. It’s beautiful, it is, but… he’d know.”

The salesman made a face and glanced around the shop. 

“Hang on a moment. We’re not supposed to do this, but…” He pulled a phone out of his pocket and typed away furiously at it for a minute before his face fell. “Sorry. It looks like none of the stores in the greater metro area have any up for grabs. I even checked our main competitors. I don’t suppose you work for Shard Capital?”

“If I did, could I solve my problem just by sneaking a bit out of the ballroom?” Aziraphale asked. That was an idea, wasn’t it? Crowley might even appreciate the idea of purloined mistletoe.

The salesman shrugged and spread his hands. “Your lips to God’s ears.”

“Thank you,” Aziraphale sighed. “You’ve been very helpful.”

He blessed the man on his way out, just a minor thing but something all the same--a cold he wouldn’t catch, a tumble he wouldn’t take, a setback he’d handle with grace and hope and suffer from less.

They’d all been trying their best; the only person he’d dealt with so far who hadn’t had much sympathy had been the woman at the first shop he’d tried, who’d assumed he’d have what he wanted in just one more stop.

Aziraphale frowned and settled onto the bench at the bus stop. He _could_ let himself into the office party of the firm the salesman had mentioned, couldn’t he? Crowley really would appreciate that sort of caper. He’d laugh and smile and tell Aziraphale that he hadn’t thought Aziraphale had it in him. He’d probably clap him on the back and start to saunter off, only for his attention to be called back by a cleared throat and a pointed look at the mistletoe they’d both been standing under.

Aziraphale could remind him that it was bad luck to refuse a kiss, and Crowley would go from stunned to delighted in the space of a moment. Aziraphale only had to…

He slumped back against the cold wooden slats, defeated before he’d even begun. This was the sort of thing Crowley could put together in the blink of an eye, all logistics and intel and plans. Aziraphale didn’t have the first idea of where to start. If they were a firm, they surely had a building, but would someplace like that have their party at the offices? Surely they’d rent out some venue that could handle everything for them? Crowley would know exactly who to ask and how to get the information, but Aziraphale didn’t even know where to begin.

Clever demon--if this were any other situation, he could bat his eyelashes and pout and tell Crowley what he wanted and have it before the day was out. No chance of it now, though, not with Crowley grousing about the holidays in general and not coming back until almost Christmas.

The bus lumbered its way up the street toward him, and Aziraphale got to his feet. There was always a chance for a Christmas miracle, even if he had to make it happen himself. It was, after all, what he did.


	3. Chapter 3

Crowley wriggled down deep under the covers, sighing happily. The bed and breakfast had miraculously had an opening, and the amenities were miraculously much better than they had any right to be. The bed had even been miraculously warm, which had finally knocked the last of the chill out of his corporation. 

He could have driven back through the night, sure, but he’d wanted a nice warm bed to tuck himself into and a nice hot breakfast taken care of by someone else to look forward to. It would have been one thing if he could have gone straight to the bookshop and made Aziraphale fuss over him and mull some wine for him and smile at him, but if he even hinted at what he’d done, it would lead to all sorts of questions, and then the surprise would be spoiled.

Crowley scooted deeper under the covers and grinned to himself at the wave of warmth that rolled from the blankets. No--better to recuperate somewhere pleasant for a few hours, have a plate of eggs and some rashers, and then enjoy the drive back in the morning.

The mistletoe had been wrapped up and chilled and threatened with eternal hellfire and damnation if it so much as thought of going off before he had a chance to use it. The thrushes hadn’t followed him. Aziraphale was doubtless singing his pretty head off somewhere in London, much to the annoyance of anyone within earshot. The angel’s real voice was Heavenly, certainly, but what he could manage with just his corporation’s vocal cords and old-fashioned gumption left a bit to be desired. Crowley had always found it obnoxiously charming, always on the verge of giving himself away while he listened to it because he couldn’t help but smile like an idiot at whatever Aziraphale was joyously, exuberantly mangling this time. There was no call to hide his smile now, but still--it was borderline _nice_ , being so taken with such bad singing. 

At least Morris was tucked away safe in the bookshop, just in case; Crowley didn’t have anything to worry about on that front.. 

It wasn’t as if the plant hadn’t been perfectly safe in his flat, or that he wouldn’t be back in London tomorrow at the latest. He’d given himself a bit of extra time just in case the universe failed to cooperate; it had been a while since he’d gone looking for mistletoe, and he didn’t recall it being quite so abundant or easily located then. It was just that he’d had a bad feeling about leaving Morris behind, like he’d come back to find the plant inexplicably shriveled up and dead just as he’d discovered that there was a mystery to be solved about Morris’s existence.

He hadn’t been paying much attention when he’d spotted the donor plant in the mansion’s trash heap, half the garden ripped up and waiting to rot in a landfill not for any disease or defect, but because fashions had changed. He’d simply thought it was pretty, and that it was a shame for such lovely things to be thrown away when they were still fit for use, and he’d taken a cutting where he couldn’t take the whole plant. Pity he hadn’t grabbed the whole thing, now that someone who knew their stuff thought it might be some oddity worth a closer look. He’d find out soon enough, certainly, but it still itched at him.

Aziraphale would keep it safe, though. He’d left behind a tin with everything the angel could possibly want or need to keep one little succulent safe and happy for a few days, and if there was one thing Aziraphale genuinely seemed to love without complication or hindrance, it was hidden knowledge that came with an immediate opportunity to put it into practice. 

Crowley thought of the look on Aziraphale’s face back during the scrum around the Apocalypse, when he’d finally landed his white whale, reached into Crowley’s back seat and come up with Agnes Nutter’s fabled prophecies. Even around the strain of what they were up against, Aziraphale had practically been radiating… well, Aziraphaleness. That keen sort of excitement wrapped up in the pleasure of discovery and the sting of covetousness, somewhere between a child with a thrilling secret and an ageless eldritch being with a pair of fledgling intelligences sheltering between his wings. That intensely inquisitive, acquisitive energy at the core of the angel, always burning away like anything even if he rarely let it show on the surface.

If Crowley hadn’t been exhausted and turning himself inside out trying to keep everything from crashing down around their ears, his own ears, and humanity’s ears, he’d have known right away that something was up--it had been centuries since he’d seen it flare that strongly.

He could only imagine the tiny spark of it that had rippled through Aziraphale’s eyes when he’d spotted the tin with its clever inscription, torn it open to find packets and satchels and Crowley’s notes on the care and keeping. He’d even gone back and scrawled a quick book-curse on the inside of the cover, calling down calumny and bad luck on thieves and pests. How many of those had Aziraphale churned out, over the ages? Thousands, probably, now that Crowley thought about it. That had been the real turning point in his slow herding of the angel into the Arrangement: learning how to curse things properly would let him protect all the precious books he kept sneaking back into monastic libraries.

Crowley snickered to himself at the thought of poor Aziraphale having to screw up his courage and dig one manicured finger knuckle-deep into the soil to test the moisture level. He’d spent years happily playing gardener--had insisted on the role even when Crowley pointed out that, of the two of them, he was the only one who’d voluntarily kept a garden since the Romans had gotten kicked off the Isles--only to revert back to shrinking from mud and tutting at dirt the moment he’d given his tearful resignation to the Dowlings. Not that it should get him too dirty; Morris might not be a devil’s backbone, but he liked it just as dry as one. And of course, if Aziraphale declined, a little bit of a drought wouldn’t hurt the plant much, and he’d have Crowley to take care of him again by tomorrow afternoon.

Trickier would be picking out the right thank-you gift to give Aziraphale for looking after him. They’d been too preoccupied with the prophecy and the wine and the giddy thrill of not having died yet for the grand tour of Crowley’s flat the one night Aziraphale had spent there, and so Crowley’s grand cache of angel-bribes had gone completely undiscovered. Anything Crowley pulled off the carefully-accumulated and curated shelves now would still be a surprise, and Crowley would get to watch Aziraphale’s face slowly metamorphose from the confused, brow-furrowed caterpillar into the beaming, bright-eyed butterfly as it dawned on the angel what he had in his hands and that it still existed in the world and that it was all his to hoard away as he pleased.

The _Inventio Fortunata_ would be well-received but raise a number of awkward questions about how Crowley had laid hands on his copy in the first place, given that it was never supposed to have left the handful of libraries and monasteries who’d commissioned a duplicate. Crowley’d grabbed it for Good Queen Bess’s court magician, then found him already on to the next project by the time Crowley’d had it ready for delivery. Aziraphale was still tetchy about them both having been nudging John Dee along, his outsized pique not soothed in the least by Crowley pointing out that most humans double-dipped between the infernal and the ethereal--Dee had just been a bit more blunt about it. It probably hadn’t helped matters that Crowley had reminded Aziraphale that it hadn’t been a demon telling the poor old bastard to go forth and practice free love. 

There was always Homer’s _Margites_ , wasn’t there? It would have Aziraphale over the moon, right up until he read it. Crowley’d spent a week just lounging around a beach and contemplating the meaning of time and human advancement after he’d found a copy misfiled in a dusty corner of a library in Kaffa, of all places. 

He’d torn into it, all eager memories of how riotously funny he’d found it the first time he’d heard it, only to find it a lumbering, hamfisted thing full of obvious twists, brute-force humor, and contrived situations. He’d even hired someone to sing it while he drank too much and feasted, treating an entire tavern to round after round and a whole roast pig, just to try and recapture the atmosphere of the original recitation he’d heard. It still hadn’t worked--he’d gotten used to the finer and subtler cultivars humanity had coaxed from that rough rootstock and lost his taste for the ancestral strain.

“Cato the Elder had to be right about something, I suppose,” Crowley snorted. “Hard to sleep on a camp bed after you get used to fine linen and a soft mattress.”

He snuggled into the bed he currently occupied and closed his eyes, a blissful reminder that he had no intention of occupying a camp bed again anytime in the next few millennia. There was no one to make him, was there? All that was over and done with. Crowley smiled to himself. Mistletoe and gifts for Aziraphale--that was what he could spend his time on, these days.

Just not the _Margites_ , not right now. Some day, certainly, but that one at least would be a gift better presented once Aziraphale was comfortable being demonstrative with his gratitude. If Aziraphale was ever going to embrace him, pet him, and be happy about it, Crowley would wait until then to hand over the comedy; he could collect his kisses before the angel got around to discovering that Crowley had given him the gift of disappointment.

Maybe the rest of Austen’s _The Brothers_ , then. It was probably time for it, wasn’t it? Aziraphale would understand why Crowley had snatched the chapters featuring a fussy, charming bookseller named Ezra Fell right out of the publisher’s offices, and he’d probably be glad of a chance to read the way good old Jane had tried to immortalize him in print. Crowley would just have to be a bit careful of how he handed it over. 

Aziraphale liked to feel like he was having an influence, like Crowley was making exceptions for him and turning nice on account of him. It had driven Crowley to the brink of madness at least once a week since they’d won their freedom, the way Aziraphale could smile and blush at Crowley slinking about and pretending to give in when the angel wanted something but shrink away like a fern exposed to full sun the moment Crowley showed him something like honest, open affection. And yes, Satan knew how little of it Aziraphale had been exposed to over the past six thousand years, between the knobs in Heaven and him keeping Crowley at arms length for safety and humans being humans, but half the point of pulling what they’d pulled had been to get clear of all that. Months later, and Aziraphale would still probably burst into flame if Crowley swept him into an embrace with no warning.

But if Crowley wrapped the book in something comparatively plain, tied it up with a little silk ribbon instead of the shiny plastic stuff that was all the rage these days, and handed it over on Christmas Eve with a stern warning not to get himself all mixed up about it, that it was payment for looking after a plant and nothing at all to do with the holidays? Aziraphale’s mouth would curl up into that soft, knowing little smile of his, that smile that meant Crowley could protest until he was blue in the face, the angel was onto him. Aziraphale would believe it because he’d discovered it for himself, too caught up in the ferreting out of answers to be afraid of them.

So Aziraphale’s Christmas present would be wrapped in simple red paper and tied with a simple black ribbon and give him something to delight in twice over, and Crowley would miracle the mistletoe up somewhere they could circle it for a bit until Aziraphale decided he was ready to deal with it, and it would all be lovely.

Crowley flicked out his tongue and caught the last lingering scent of the gingerbread that had been baking downstairs when he’d checked in. Yes, it would all be quite lovely, wouldn’t it? Worth every last bit of effort. He sighed, pleased with himself, and settled into a few hours of proper sleep.

* * *

Aziraphale straightened his bowtie and looked himself over in the mirror. Black slacks, crisp white shirt, black bowtie--he’d fit right in with the rest of the caterers, surely. He still couldn’t quite believe his luck. 

Everyone on the bus had seemed so tired and dreary, and there had been so much to celebrate, and he hadn’t been able to resist going a bit overboard with the miracles. People’s aches and pains had disappeared. Everyone had suddenly felt well-rested in spite of their long shifts and the cold weather. Bosses texted belated approval for time off, bonuses were deposited early, distant loved ones sent pictures that warmed the heart instead of making it ache. Unexpected invitations came to parties the recipients suddenly found themselves looking forward to attending. 

The whole thing had turned the bus into a bit of a party, with everyone inexplicably in the mood to share their candy and their stories and their pictures. One of the women across the aisle from Aziraphale had even started telling everyone about the last-minute addition of entire bags of mistletoe to the decorations for a party she was working the next evening. 

It had completely destroyed the color scheme that the marketing department had come up with, and HR had started a minor tiff by declaring very firmly that none of the stuff was to be hung anywhere employees could wind up underneath it. The food safety coordinator at the catering company had threatened to walk off the job if they so much as breathed about putting it on the same tables as the food and drink, and the woman couldn’t much blame him--he’d already spent the better part of two weeks making sure the menu wouldn’t contain any of the reported serious allergens among attendees.

“The company’s enormous, so it’s all the usual suspects, and you can’t guarantee there’ll be no cross-contamination from the guests being careless unless you put things on whole separate tables,” she’d said, shaking her head. “All that, and then they turn around and try to wrap everything in literal poison? Honestly, this time of year you can’t get away from adverts warning you not to let your pets near it, and they want to throw it in the punch bowl.”

Aziraphale had played it so cleverly, tutting about companies these days and telling her he’d only just come from a florist who’d had their entire stock bought out by someplace called Shard Capital for _their_ Christmas party. 

“Someone must have made it the in thing this year,” he’d told her.

She’d laughed at that, suddenly merry and tossing her curls under her knit cap. “Them’s the wankers! You weren’t trying to get some for yourself, were you?”

“Last-minute whim. I’m just glad there aren’t two places with the same horrid ideas for an office party.” It had been difficult to contain his glee, difficult to play it smooth enough around his excitement to not upset her when he suggested she tell him where the party was happening. The building name had slipped out without her even noticing that she’d told him, and there it was--his Christmas miracle.

It was time to go, almost, and he had the most wonderful plan. All he’d have to do would be slip in among the caterers, suggest very strongly to whoever was directing them on the company’s behalf that all the mistletoe anywhere near the food very much needed to go, and then he’d have _entire bags_ of the stuff to put wherever he liked in the shop. Crowley would laugh at his cleverness, and he’d have been technically making the whole thing safer for everyone, so he needn’t worry his conscience over it. He’d given his unwitting source a thorough blessing before she’d gotten off the bus, too--good health, good luck, the resilience to bear up under things that couldn’t be warded off with just a blessing.

Aziraphale shrugged into his coat and wound his scarf around his neck. He’d been so disappointed yesterday, between Crowley popping off like that and discovering that all the mistletoe in the city had been bought up already, and then he’d made people happy and brought them together, and suddenly he’d been given the power to solve his own problems. He wasn’t so grasping or desperate as to call it a sign from God, nor quite so arrogant that he’d point to it as a sign that She wanted this for him, but it had a certain ineffability to it, didn’t it? 

It was like rummaging around in Crowley’s car and suddenly finding the answer to his prayers right there in his hand, like losing the bookshop only to have Crowley right beside him offering him shelter, like the one prophecy they still needed fluttering right into their hands. Not Great, not written in gleaming gold letters or announced by a chorus of angels, but… perfect. Tailor-made and given precisely as it was needed.

Aziraphale smiled to himself, then stopped short almost at the door. He turned, frowning, trying to think of what it was that had caught his attention. Oh, there it was--the plant Crowley had asked him to look after.

“Poor thing,” he sighed. It was even more wilted that it had been yesterday, and how long had Crowley been neglecting the little plant that even a good drenching couldn’t perk it back up? “Just because you took a while to bloom, and then it wasn’t to his liking when you did.”

Aziraphale scooped it up and ferried it back to the sink. It couldn’t be helped, he supposed. Crowley was a demon--it was a miracle he could care for things at all. Aziraphale had seen precisely how horribly eager all the others were to prey on any sort of softness or weakness, how quickly they went into a frenzy the moment there was blood in the water. It had been bad enough, spending an afternoon with it; Crowley had been dealing with it since the Fall.

That Crowley was a bit unpredictable in his caring, a bit hard-edged or self-interested sometimes even in the thick of it, was unfortunate but the sort of thing that had to be expected and worked around. And even with his limitations, Crowley was still capable of more kindness and consideration than half the angels Aziraphale knew. It was simply easier for the demon to manage it when there was some cover to it, something for him to hide behind and shield himself with. Aziraphale could demand to be tempted, let Crowley pretend that he was taking advantage or coming up with some cunning new wile or giving in to his demonic urges to sully an angel, pretend that he believed Crowley’s explanations for why it was all so terribly wicked. 

But a sickly little houseplant? It needed, and it could give nothing back. Small wonder Crowley found it so much more difficult to just care for his garden without throwing the occasional fit or shouting at them or casting them out. There was nothing he could possibly be doing but caring for them, and sometimes it was doubtless too much.

Aziraphale ran the tap and drenched the plant, letting the water run through his fingers so that it didn’t fall too heavily on the stalk. When he was satisfied that this time, at least, it had gotten to drink its fill, he wiped off the pot and returned it to its warm spot on the shelf.

“There you go,” he cooed, patting one of its curling leaves. “You’ll be on the mend in no time at all, won’t you?”

Aziraphale straightened his coat and let himself out of the shop, locking up after himself and turning on a string of jaunty fairy lights around the window with a snap of his fingers. It was just a few minutes to the bus, which came right on time and was filled with another round of people in need of a good cheering up.

Aziraphale was in an absolutely brilliant mood by the time he’d reached the site of the party. It would be nothing at all to breeze in, breeze out with his mistletoe, and be home in time for cocoa and carolers. He smiled to himself as he shed his coat and scarf, spotting a server he could just tag along after almost immediately.

It was a shame that what he followed them into was less the preparation for an office Christmas party and more a reprise of his trip through Hell.

Aziraphale scuttled out of the way, staring around at the absolute pandemonium he’d found himself in the center of. People were bustling every which way, no one was watching where they were going, and some man in a power suit fit for Gabriel kept flinging his arms about like a Punch and Judy puppet while remonstrating with a harried-looking, thin-lipped woman in a caterer’s uniform. The miracles that kept him from knocking trays out of people’s hands and backhanding the staff were performed almost without thinking about it, but it was a near thing even then--Aziraphale would have thought the man’s aim was impeccable, but his eyes never left the woman in front of him.

“What’s going on?” Aziraphale asked, as soon as one of the real caterers slowed down enough for him to catch her attention.

She shrugged. “Too many cooks. The admin assistant whose name’s on the contract got sacked last week, so now it’s up to whoever shouted last. At least three different VPs see this as their chance to impress the boss, HR’s just had to gin up a bunch of answers about harassment suits for the press, and the CFO has a personal vision he wants to execute. And that’s just what Abigail’s heard about so far. Probably another two VPs in the wings waiting for their chance to yell about something, at least.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale grimaced. Well, that was something he could probably fix too, wasn’t it? 

She was gone again before Aziraphale could ask anything more, but that was fine--he had everything he needed, really.

All the bosses needed was a good dose or two of holiday cheer and goodwill toward their fellows and perhaps a reminder to be humble and giving and thoughtful. He brightened. He’d been managing more for people in worse straits for a week now.

He prowled around the periphery. After Crowley had gotten finished teasing him about his time as a would-be spy, he’d passed along the little hint about looking at people’s shoes. The agent playing at something above his pay grade might borrow the clothes and pinch the cuff links and the watch, but they couldn’t afford the shoes. It was likely the same for middle managers and corporate yes-men, Aziraphale thought--a person might give an inordinate sense of prosperity by wearing their best suit to the year-end party, but what did their best shoes look like?

Aziraphale frowned at himself. What was he thinking? It was the holidays, for God’s sake. Only bestowing the gift of empathy and humility and good cheer on upper management was practically antithetical to the whole thing. Surely anyone already in attendance and not on the catering staff should be eligible?

He considered the caterers. Minor blessings, for them--good tips, kind words, forbearance from the guests, and comfortable shoes. And for the guests themselves… Aziraphale beamed. Yes, he had just the thing. Well, just the thing, plus a little suggestion that he be given however much mistletoe he wanted. It would be splendid.


	4. Chapter 4

Crowley stalked past his plants, then back again, eyes narrowed and hands clasped behind his back. Not a tendril, stalk, or stamen out of place. He could almost feel their attention skittering past him to focus on the carefully-wrapped mistletoe on the counter, and his snapped his fingers in front of them.

“You lot! Pay no attention to that one, he won’t be staying.” He glared at them all, spoiling the effect a bit with the bit of mincemeat he had stuck in a molar and couldn’t quite either leave be or work loose with his tongue. The proprietor of the bed and breakfast had seen him eyeing the gingerbread like a… well, like a snake with an unguarded clutch. She’d made up a box for him to take with him, on account of him having come so far on such a romantic mission.

“He’ll be flattered, dear, I’m sure,” she’d said, with a besotted look down the hall to where they could hear her wife singing carols as she puttered about in the kitchen. “You’ll get your kiss, I dare say.”

Crowley’d spent the whole drive back smelling the gingerbread, and under the gingerbread, the wholesome joy and straightforward happiness that had gone into them. The moment he’d gotten back to London, he’d found someplace that still carried the old-style sweetmeats and devoured half a box of mincemeat tartlets. He’d enjoy the gingerbread, he was sure, if he gave into temptation and ate it. If Aziraphale ever found out, the angel wouldn’t hold it against him. They’d been given to Crowley, after all, and they’d been his to do with as he pleased, including gobble them up like a monstrous blue puppet with a grammatical deficit. Crowley was sure they’d taste divine, still warm as if they’d come right from the oven, awash in love and the pleasure of loving company.

Crowley would enjoy it. Aziraphale, however, would be in utter bliss from it. The things Crowley could sense as auras and patinas and faint remnants would be there just as strong as any spice for the angel.

“Ugh.” Crowley scowled and snapped his fingers again, this time for a miracle instead of an attention-getting device. The bit of mince vanished, and he flicked out his tongue, testing the air. 

Nothing smelled amiss, even. Maybe his little premonition about Morris had just been a last jolt of paranoia, cut loose from its normal moorings of Hell being onto him or Heaven being onto Aziraphale and running aground on a suddenly-mysterious tropical plant. That was probably it, really--he’d been keyed up about his plan to move things another step down the road with Aziraphale, and it had shaken loose all the things he tried not to be quite so keyed up about these days. Well, he supposed he’d done worse things in a pinch. 

Besides, it gave him the excuse he needed to get Aziraphale blushing and excited about getting a present from him, and it was nothing to keep Morris miracled warm and safe on the short drive from Mayfair to Soho, so it wasn’t as if anything terrible was going to come of being wrong.

Crowley glared at the plants one last time. “As you were. And _don’t_ \--” He picked one at random and pointed at it. “--let me catch you slacking off just because it’s the holidays. We are not at home to days off and sloppiness and all that nonsense in this house.”

They shivered, and he tugged at his cuffs and pushed on through to the bedroom. A sliding panel gave way to reveal shelf after shelf of beautiful scrolls and manuscripts, along with more recent works and the odd carving. The Arrangement had given Crowley a better vantage point from which to observe Aziraphale being delighted with things which he then wouldn’t allow himself to have--the price was too high, the owner didn’t want to part with it, he’d recently been reprimanded for frivolous pursuits.

And what good was being a demon if Crowley couldn’t be frivolous and vain and spread money around like it was going out of style? Aziraphale would sigh sadly and murmur assent and walk away. Crowley could lean across the counter, drop his glasses halfway down his nose, and ask if they were sure there wasn’t _something_ they’d rather have than that book, or that little gewgaw, or that relic. 

The relics had been a problem, and he’d eventually had to settle for anonymous donations to the old chapels and historic churches with their beautiful windows and sculptures and choirs and libraries that Aziraphale loved to frequent. He couldn’t have them in the flat with him--too dangerous, piled on top of too many questions--and stowing saints’ bones and Jesus’s blood in a cheap self-storage locker seemed like a bad idea. Everything else, he’d kept close and ready to hand.

Crowley’s eyes fell upon the particular box he wanted, and he slipped it off the shelf with a flourish. “Austen, my dove, you’re going to make him so happy.”

He’d always felt a tad guilty about swiping it--her last novel, the one she’d labored over even as strength and vitality failed her. He’d been tempted to thread the needle and bless her properly, give her a few more years or at least a lot more comfort, but by then he thought she really had been on to the pair of them. If there was no mistaking Aziraphale for anything other than an angel at times, then it wasn’t hard to guess what his sneering, black-clad, off-putting opposite number must be. If she was in the market for favors from demons, he imagined it would have been something a lot more ambitious than good health and better pens.

But then, Aziraphale might see it published now, mightn’t he? Enough time had passed that anyone connecting the dots between the character and the angel could be put off with the longevity of the family and its business. Aziraphale was so wonderful at going wide-eyed and breathless, though how everyone else resisted the urge to kiss that adorable look right back off his face again was beyond Crowley. He was a demon, and he’d had thousands of years to build up a tolerance to it, besides, but someone running face-first into that bright, beautiful innocence for the first time, as a mortal? They should have been goners.

He could hear the angel telling his pretty lies even now. _She must have known my great-great-great, ah, you get the idea. How exciting, to think that Jane Austen might have been a patron when the shop first opened! Do you think I could get away with adding it to the marque?_

Crowley smiled at the thought. Aziraphale would probably hoard the manuscript itself but let some enterprising young grad student take a bunch of pictures with their phone to make their bones as a scholar. Some things unearthed the guardian instinct buried in the angel a lot more readily than others; it was merely a matter of picking the right way to come at the problem.

He snapped his fingers a third time, and the box with its loose leaves covered in neat, regular script was wrapped in unassuming red paper and tied perfectly with a glossy black ribbon. He would hand the gingerbread over, give Morris a good inspection just to make a show of it, and then produce the manuscript. Aziraphale would coo over it like a pigeon fussing over newly-hatched squabs, giving Crowley a prime opportunity to surreptitiously install the mistletoe. He’d ferry Morris home again, then come back to have a glass of port and a good laugh over how delighted the angel was with his present. They’d reminisce, and Aziraphale would think on how much they’d been through together, and suddenly that kiss wouldn’t seem like such a great leap after all, but a natural progression, a thing to be welcomed and not dreaded.

“Just a little change, angel,” Crowley promised, smiling to himself. They’d gone through bigger ones, after all--shouting at each other and not speaking to each other and occasionally having to pretend to try and kill each other. Aziraphale had made the biggest change all by himself, back in Rome when he’d insisted on Crowley coming out to eat with him instead of just fucking off back to his wine and his tria board as Crowley had so desperately wanted him to do. And it had all been so much for the better, hadn’t it? Every time they’d crept another few steps farther down the path, it had been better for both of them.

Crowley scooped up the mistletoe and headed back out the door, the wrapped box firmly in his other hand. He couldn’t wait to see the look on Aziraphale’s face when he tasted the gingerbread. When he opened the gift. When he saw the mistletoe.

Crowley’s optimism lasted the few minutes it took him to navigate the reveler-choked streets and pull up in front of the closed, darkened shop. Completely devoid of angelic beings, and Crowley supposed it was bound to happen eventually. Especially since Aziraphale had seemed so hellbent on celebrating everything that crossed his path, and Crowley had specifically told him he’d be out of town for another day or two. 

It was the first night of Hanukkah, wasn’t it? Crowley couldn’t remember now what Aziraphale had said about the dates. If it was, the angel was probably making every candle in the great metropolitan area consumption-proof and every loaf of challah perfect. 

If it wasn’t yet, then it would be solstice still, and Aziraphale would probably be out making every bit of greenery that much fuller and brighter and everyone’s fires just a bit merrier. Crowley shook his head. Satan help them all once it was properly time for Yule--Aziraphale would be drunk on holiday cheer, practically unstoppable. He’d start miracling whiskey into people’s morning coffee and bonfires into being in the middle of intersections. Crowley might have to intervene if the horse skulls and the wolf skins started putting in appearances, but then again what was the harm in an angel enjoying himself a bit?

He smiled fondly at the empty shop. Tomorrow, then. He’d call ahead and make sure the angel was in, first. His gaze slipped to the box of gingerbread, and he licked his lips. He’d just stop somewhere on the way home and buy a box of sufganiyot to keep himself occupied. It would be fine.

* * *

Aziraphale giggled to himself and staggered into the shop, the door obligingly miracling itself open ahead of his full arms and unsteady footsteps. He shouldn’t be so pleased with himself, he thought. He really shouldn’t. _But_.

He set the bag of mistletoe down and miracled on the lights. He had enough mistletoe to hang it practically _everywhere_ , and Crowley would think him so bold. He was always so pleased when Aziraphale misbehaved. Aziraphale stopped and sighed happily. Crowley would kiss him, and Crowley would hold him, and Crowley would…

Crowley would settle onto the couch with him and hold him close and kiss him some more, was what Crowley would do. They’d be under another clump of mistletoe--he wouldn’t be able to help it.

Aziraphale tried not to laugh at it, couldn’t help himself, and then didn’t bother trying anymore. Oh, but he’d made such a mess of things at the party. He hadn’t been trying, he really hadn’t. He held up the bottle of eggnog and squinted at it, trying to gauge how much was left. They’d all gotten at least one to themselves, after all the executives and their plus-ones had started confessing to all sorts of interesting things in the name of clearing the air and starting fresh for the holidays. 

Fist-fights had broken out, and then everyone who wasn’t fighting had been trying to reconcile and apologize. Four people had quit to go find themselves, or make amends for their lives, or heal breaches with their families. A vice-president of something or other had announced that they owned a property management company as a subsidiary, or something to that effect--Aziraphale had really only understood the part about never evicting anyone they didn’t have to again.

“Why would they evict anyone they didn’t have to?” Aziraphale had asked.

“Kick out the old tenants and get in new tenants you can charge more,” one of the servers had immediately answered.

“Oh.”

He hadn’t known what to do with that bit of information, so he’d just given up trying to process it for a few minutes and starting stuffing greenery into a garbage bag. By the time he’d filled the bag, the descent into chaos had been complete: two separate, rival executives had called separate, rival press conferences to make separate, rival announcements of charity pledges on the company’s behalf.

The few essentially unaffected company personnel had sent the caterers home, with--at Aziraphale’s suggestion--full pay and anything they wanted to take from the kitchen. He’d given a full-force blessing to the man who’d discovered the untouched bottles of traditional eggnog--made from scratch and by hand, and didn’t that take him right back to the old days?--chilling in the fridges and started passing them out. There’d been enough for everyone to have a bottle to themselves, and Aziraphale couldn’t even begin to think he’d been overdoing it with that bit of the evening. It had been delicious, and all the servers had been so happy.

When he’d discovered the commutes most of them had been looking at just to get home, he’d also suggested that the towncars waiting to take the guests to their next engagement might prefer to drive the servers home instead. He’d been pulled into the one heading to Soho, and someone had grabbed an extra bottle for the drive, and they’d all passed it around and sung a ridiculous song about Santa that half the car had mumbled their way through, laughing every time someone repeated the chorus on accident.

By the time they’d left him at the front door, even the driver had been singing along. Aziraphale had waved hard with the hand full of bagged mistletoe, and he’d almost toppled over, and it had dawned on him that he’d really done it.

Aziraphale upended the bag, shook out the mistletoe, and snapped his fingers. He laughed again at the result, a wonderful, light-feeling thing bubbling out of his chest. To think, he could have spent every winter like this instead of cooped up in stodgy churches with stiff, obligation-bound congregants and families never quite comfortable with each other, overseeing Gabriel-approved nonsense. He’d had such a good time, and he’d grabbed all the mistletoe anyone could possibly want.

The whole shop was practically covered in the stuff now. He smiled softly, then carried his bottle of eggnog to the couch in front of the fireplace and miracled a tiny little blaze into being. Just the smallest of fires--he was in no more of hurry for another conflagration than Crowley was. But still, a fire in the hearth and a drink in hand. The only thing missing was a demon in his lap, seizing on the excuse of holiday tradition to allow himself to be cuddled and petted.

Aziraphale lifted the bottle to his lips and smiled. Crowley might even let him take those ridiculous glasses off that handsome face, might let him run his fingers through that pretty hair…

It was too bad, he thought, that all mistletoe let one get away with was a kiss. It would be perfect if it was acceptable to make overwrought, sweeping declarations of love while one was at it.

_I love you. I know you’re a demon, I know you think love was invented by poets to get people to listen to them for more than thirty seconds, I know, I know,_ I know. _But I love you, and I need you to know that you’re loved._

He took a long pull off the eggnog and watched the fire. The bookshop had burned, and Crowley had rushed into it, looking for him. The bookshop had burned, and Crowley had offered him a place to stay, immediately and without condition. The world would have burned, but for Crowley choosing to stand with him and throw all their hopes and whatever time they had left at the feet of a strange child. Compared to all that, how hard could it really be to hear Aziraphale say what Crowley had to know anyway?

“Not very hard at all, surely,” he murmured to himself, lifting the bottle again. “I mean, he told Satan himself to get bent. Spit in Gabriel’s face, when Gabriel thought he was me. Surely ‘I love you’ isn’t any great trial after that?”

Aziraphale chuckled, thinking of his brave demon facing down the archangels on his behalf. Crowley had been so furious with them afterwards, he’d been practically vibrating with it. Of the two of them, Aziraphale was usually the one who needed protection less, but that had never stopped Crowley from trying. Aziraphale had never asked him to, had he? He’d only ever asked Crowley to be careful of himself. And yet, there Crowley always was, trying to get between him and trouble.

Well, maybe it could be a new tradition, just for them. So long as they were under the mistletoe, Aziraphale could say, “I love you.”

He raised the bottle in a toast to the boughs dangling from the banisters and… thin air. He’d gotten a bit carried away there, he supposed, but he couldn’t regret it. Whenever Crowley got back, he was in for a surprise.

“Wherever you are, Crowley,” he sighed, “happy…” Aziraphale paused. “Oh, bugger. What day even is it, right now?”

He squinted about, trying to find a calendar, then waved a hand. It didn’t matter.

“Happy whatever sodding day it is,” Aziraphale laughed. “They should all be this merry. Be a better place for everyone if they were.”

He put the fire out, slid down into the cushions, and sipped at the eggnog until it was gone and he was very warm, and very drunk, and very sleepy.


	5. Chapter 5

Aziraphale woke with an uncomfortable echo of a hangover, and he banished it with a thought. Right, the eggnog. The party, and the mistletoe, and the eggnog.

He got to his feet and frowned. He hadn’t changed out of his fake caterer’s outfit from last night. Well, that was easily enough mended. He paused when he caught sight of Crowley’s plant; it somehow looked even more pathetic than it had the night before. He rubbed the grit from his eyes. One thing at a time.

Once he was dressed properly again, he could try Crowley’s phone or dig through some of the books he’d taken on exchange and see if any of them were on plant care. Crowley wouldn’t have left the plant with him if it was as sick as that. Or, if Crowley had--if Crowley had picked up some tragic case at a greenhouse and left it with him to tease him--then Aziraphale would have sensed the trick lurking at the edges of the demon’s heart.

Then again, he had been a bit distracted when Crowley had just shown up out of the blue like that. He’d been in the middle of trying to repair a book, hadn’t he? Distracted, and with his hands full, and a little out of sorts when Crowley had announced that he was going away, and he really could have been paying more attention, couldn’t he?

Aziraphale shook his head and pulled on a cardigan. His own clothes felt so much nicer than the ones he’d fallen asleep in; he must have really indulged last night, to not even bother changing into pajamas. He traced his way through some of the less important shelves--books he’d only had since the 1970s or so--and found nothing.

“Not to worry,” he told the plant, with more confidence than he felt. It really was looking quite poorly, even after all the watering he’d done. “Sometimes the older texts are best.”

As if in direct response, two leaves fell off the stalk and landed with an unpleasant, fleshy sort of noise on the shelf. Aziraphale’s brows furrowed, and he retreated to the back room. Maybe there was something wrong with his water? Or rather, not _wrong_ , but not right for the plant. Crowley had complained about that at length once, how he’d got one of the plants that needed ground water mixed up with the plants that wanted rain water only, and now it wilted and browned every time he gave it what it was supposed to get.

“’s like a cat sulking because it’s not getting the good stuff,” he’d grumbled, scowling out the window as if it was some unspeakable catastrophe that one of his plants was misbehaving.

“Well, can’t you just… keep giving it the good stuff?” Aziraphale had asked.

“What, and let it _win_?” Crowley had been aghast.

But there were minerals and salts to consider, pH balances and things like that--he remembered that much, from Crowley’s ranting. And Crowley might not have known it would be a problem when he left it with Aziraphale, if the plant had never given him any sort of trouble about it before.

Aziraphale pored over his shelves. Greek texts on plants that didn’t exist anymore--no. Roman texts about plants that had never existed--no. German texts on plants that would just as easily kill a person as cure them--no. A tin labeled ‘Care and Keeping of Whatever Morris Is’--

Aziraphale stopped in his tracks and stared at the tin. He had been at his work table, bent over the book he’d been trying to repair, and Crowley had… Crowley had been standing just _there_ , and Crowley had put down a tin, and then Crowley had gone on his expedition to find the perfect spot to leave the plant. Aziraphale simply hadn’t been paying enough attention, had been immediately distracted by all the rest of it.

Aziraphale took a deep breath, brightened the lights, and eased the lid off the tin as gingerly as if he was disarming a bomb. There was a little packet of salts labeled as fertilizer, and a bigger packet of peat, and a small notebook. Underneath that was a stack of photos, receipts, business cards--a hodgepodge of ephemera Crowley couldn’t have hoped he’d decipher. Aziraphale opened the notebook.

It was a meticulous log of the plant’s care since its parent’s discovery. Aziraphale swallowed. There was a note in darker, fresher ink next to the entry for its cutting, which had originally only included the address and date: harvested from rubbish heap, donor plant slated for discard due to landscaping project.

Aziraphale paged carefully through the book. Crowley had spent the last ten years meticulously checking soil moisture, light levels, and nutrient intake. The plant had been repotted regularly to guard against compacted or poorly-draining soil. Crowley had, in fact, watered it the week before he’d left it with Aziraphale; according to the schedule, the plant wasn’t due for another week. A post-it note on the back of the book advised Aziraphale to check for damp down past the first knuckle of his finger in the event that he thought the plant might need watering. The worst thing he could possibly do, the note implied, was to overwater the plant. “When in doubt, leave it be.”

He set the book down and rubbed his eyes, his mind refusing to catch up with what was happening. When he dropped his hands, the first thing he saw was a picture of the plant looking exactly as it had when Crowley had dropped it off. Aziraphale picked up the stack of things and rifled through them. The pictures were labeled with dates, conditions, commentary. The slightly-shriveled, wobbly look was apparently “typical.” There were other diagnostic criteria for too much light, not enough light, water straight from the tap versus filtered through the peat. A thumb drive rattling around in the tin was labeled as a full slate of photos of the recent--and so far only--inflorescence.

Crowley had gathered all this, because Crowley had been giving it to Kew as a first step to figuring out what it really was, because it was special. Crowley had trusted him with it, written additional notes just for him, and asked him to keep an eye on it. And he had very probably killed it.

Aziraphale bit his lip. Well. It had been a nice holiday while it lasted, hadn’t it?

He set everything down and went to his phone. Whatever Crowley was off doing, he could at least tell Aziraphale how to start fixing the mess he’d made.

“Angel!” Crowley sounded so cheerful--practically chipper. “I was just about to call you. I’m back in town--mind if I drop in?”

“Yes, I--ah. I rather think you’d better,” Aziraphale managed weakly. He glanced out at the plant, which lost another leaf as he watched.

“See you in a few minutes, then.”

“Crowley, I--” Aziraphale stopped and looked at the handset. “--’m talking to a dial tone.”

He supposed that was that, then. Crowley had hung up, and Crowley was racing over to collect his plant, and…

Aziraphale set the receiver in its cradle and walked slowly back to the pot. 

And instead of the plant that Crowley had cared for over the course of a decade, the plant he’d named, Aziraphale would give him back this sad, dying bundle. All because Aziraphale hadn’t noticed a carefully-labeled tin deposited right under his nose, in his own workshop.

“For what it’s worth, Morris, I am sorry,” Aziraphale said quietly. “I was doing my best to take care of you, I just… I should have done better. I should have known better. I didn’t mean to make you suffer.”

Crowley would understand that it had been an accident, wouldn’t he? He’d shout, of course, but maybe it would only be a little--he’d know Aziraphale felt terribly over the whole thing. And maybe it wasn’t as bad as it looked, maybe now that someone who knew how to care for it properly could take over, it could still be salvaged. He hadn’t meant to, he really hadn’t, but it had been such a ridiculous, careless thing to have done. Aziraphale looked at the plant, and he thought about how he would feel if Crowley had accidentally destroyed a book he’d spent ten years restoring, a book he’d recently discovered might be the only copy left in the world, by just not paying attention.

Aziraphale closed his eyes and tried to breathe through the sudden roiling of his stomach. Oh, God help him, what had he done?

Aziraphale picked up the pot, cradled it in his arms, and sat down on the couch to wait for Crowley.

* * *

Crowley patted the boxes stacked neatly next to him on the bentley’s passenger seat. Aziraphale was going to love all of it, Crowley _knew_ he would.

He gathered it up carefully and swept into the shop, determined to make his customary nonchalant-but-dramatic entrance. He only had to play it cool, and Aziraphale would narrow his eyes and try to puzzle everything out and be so pleased when he came to his conclusions.

“Angel?” Crowley called. He’d rather expected Aziraphale to be behind the register or loitering at some shelf near the door, the way he usually was when he knew Crowley would be walking through the door any moment. Crowley had never quite been able to decide if it was a sublimated eagerness to see him or suspicion that Crowley would seize any unsupervised moment to poke about in Aziraphale’s precious books.

“Back here,” Aziraphale called, his voice unexpectedly sober, given the season.

Crowley’s eyebrows drew together, worry creasing his face. 

_No, none of that,_ he told himself. _Not today. Not now._

He set everything down on the counter and ventured back, rounding a bookshelf only to find Aziraphale sitting on the edge of the sofa, holding Morris in his lap and looking more thoroughly miserable than Crowley had seen him since he’d stopped having to answer to Gabriel.

Crowley’s lips pursed in an immediate question, and then Aziraphale looked up sadly and Crowley got a better look at the culprit. He sighed irritably and shook his head.

“I go away for two days, and you do this,” he said crossly. He should have known better. Aziraphale’s cheeks lost their pretty bloom, paling even as Crowley scoffed. “You knew better, too, didn’t you? I warned you.”

“Crowley, I…” Aziraphale’s eyes were on the floor, and he licked his lips. “I’m sorry. I really am.”

“You see? This is exactly what I’m talking about.” He circled the table and pried the pot from Aziraphale’s hands. “Two days, and you’ve turned the angel into a nervous wreck, you wretched thing.”

He probably should have hired someone, shouldn’t he? He should’ve known exactly what would happen if he left Morris in the bookshop. Aziraphale and his tender heart could no more stand up to a willful, conniving succulent than he could stand up to the archangels circa 2007.

Crowley carried Morris to the sink and carefully propped the stalk up with one hand while he tipped the pot sideways, miracling all the excess water out of the soil. Even beyond that, of course, he should have known after that dirty business with Oedipus that there was no wriggling out of fated misfortune.

“I don’t suppose you gave him a good scolding over his bad behavior and I can skip this bit?” Crowley asked, grimacing at the amount of water flowing from the pot. Aziraphale must have misread the notes he’d left. It was unlike the angel, but then some of his abbreviations might have been a bit opaque to someone not used to dealing with plants in a clinical setting. Planting full beds involved pounds and shovels full and square meters covered, not teaspoons and drams. “If I’d known you were going to act like this, I’d have left you for the binmen.”

“It’s not his fault!” Aziraphale cried, hovering at the threshold as if it wasn’t his own shop and he couldn’t come in if and when he liked. 

Crowley turned and looked over his shoulder, surprised at Aziraphale’s tone. Even relieved of the burden, Aziraphale still looked as if he might weep.

“I didn’t find the tin with your instructions until just now, right before I called you,” Aziraphale confessed, unable to meet Crowley’s eyes. “I thought he was wilting, and I watered him… well, I drowned him, more like. Please, I know you must be angry with me, but I really didn’t mean to.”

“Angry with you?” Crowley echoed. He looked back to the plant in his hands, which had finished draining, then shook his head and wiped off the pot.

“Furious, then,” Aziraphale said, wringing his hands. He finally looked up, and his eyes had that bright, glossy look that meant tears weren’t far behind. “I’m sorry--I know you trusted me, and I didn’t live up to that trust. Can you forgive me?”

“Oh, fuck’s sake,” Crowley murmured. He glared at Morris. “Are you happy now? You’re going to make him cry.”

“Crowley!” Aziraphale’s expression was so plaintive that Crowley was torn between sweeping him into a hug to soothe him and laughing.

“Angel, it’s a plant,” Crowley reminded him. What could the angel think there was to forgive? “And an accident. It’s not like you broke into my flat with a tub of industrial-strength Banish and hosed the place down.”

“...Banish?” Aziraphale asked.

“Like holy water, but for plants,” Crowley said. Aziraphale blanched. “Modern version of salting the earth.”

He held the pot up and considered Morris’s sorry state, then miracled the incipient rot out of the root system. Morris was very decidedly unhappy, and most absolutely throwing an utter fit about it, but he’d live. Whatever he was, he came from tough stock; the donor plant had been ripped up and spent three days on the rubbish heap in the tropical heat with no sign of kicking off when Crowley had happened by. He glanced over at his fretting angel.

“Here,” Crowley said, handing over the pot with what he hoped was a gentle, reassuring smile. “Bless him better, if you like.”

“You never use miracles on them,” Aziraphale said quietly, looking down at the pot in his hands.

“Because it spoils them rotten and makes them think they can run wild and do whatever they like and I’ll just snap my fingers and fix it when they get sick or start going to seed or fruit out of season without the stem strength or root system to support it all,” Crowley told him. Worse than seminary students at an open bar, when they really got going. “Given that Morris here will be going to live in a completely magic-free botanical garden soon,” he eyed the plant and let his voice drop into the sternest register he could manage with Aziraphale standing there and looking so fragile, “he should know better than to get used to it.”

“You’re certain?” Aziraphale asked.

“Yes, angel, I’m certain,” Crowley assured him. He watched, heart going inexplicably tender as Aziraphale looked at the plant he was holding so carefully, took a deep breath, and blessed it. The poor angel had really thought… “See? Good as new.”

Crowley took Morris back and examined him. Sulking as only a succulent could, out of sorts and disoriented and ready to throw another tantrum as soon as Crowley’s attention was elsewhere, but he’d live. Crowley set the pot down and healed over the spots where he’d lost leaves.

“You didn’t really think there was anything to forgive, did you?” he asked, tilting his head. Aziraphale hadn’t seemed half so broken up about it when he’d apologized for all the carrying on around the would-be last week of the world.

Aziraphale’s face crumpled, and he waved from Morris to the open tin, half its contents stacked neatly on the shelf next to it. “You left such thorough instructions! And I ignored them!”

“Angel, it’s a _plant_ ,” Crowley repeated, feeling as if Aziraphale’s time as an estate gardener should have acquainted him with how often even the best-intentioned efforts failed. If Crowley treated his plants the way Aziraphale treated his books, he’d never get anything done. Crowley frowned and straightened. Ah--that was it, wasn’t it? “They’re alive, angel. They can’t be left on a shelf and dusted every so often and be expected thrive that way. Even if I took flawless care of them all and never did anything wrong, I’m still going to lose a good half of them to time and accident and their natural lifecycle.”

Aziraphale made an unhappy noise in the back of his throat, and Crowley held up a hand.

“You can’t muck about with living things unless you accept that sometimes they’re going to be a bit, erm, not great at it,” he said. “Cuttings don’t root. Grafts don’t take. Seeds fail, or they’re too successful and you have to thin them. Sometimes they grow together in the same spot, both of them jockeying for all the resources, and you have to pick which lives because otherwise they’ll both die. Morris got lucky, and his needs are compatible with a real devil’s backbone, or I’d have killed him on accident myself as soon as he was off the rooting medium.”

“I really was trying to take proper care of him,” Aziraphale said. Crowley could see in his eyes that he didn’t quite believe that was all there was to it.

“You’ve never done anything less,” Crowley assured him. “That’s why I left him with you in the first place.”

“I was just so distracted--”

“Aziraphale.” Crowley leaned forward and took him by the shoulders. “I’m not angry with you. You didn’t mean to, you’re sorry--you don’t need to account for yourself any more than you’ve already done.” Crowley squeezed him gently, fingers sinking into the soft knit of the cardigan, then let go. “All right?”

“He’ll really live?” Aziraphale asked, his eyes turning back to the little plant.

“If he knows what’s good for him,” Crowley said cheerfully, and Aziraphale’s eyes went wide.

“Be nice!” Aziraphale hissed. “He’s had a very difficult two days.”

Crowley laughed at that; how quickly Aziraphale could bounce back once things had been squared away. Aziraphale pursed his lips primly and gave Crowley a reproachful look for laughing.

“Come on, angel, let’s give him a moment to recover in peace,” Crowley said, throwing an arm across Aziraphale’s shoulders and steering him back to the sofa. Aziraphale shrank in on himself at that, and Crowley let his arm drop, heart fluttering all out of proportion to the flinch. It was just that Aziraphale was upset, was all. Crowley only needed to give him a little space, same as they were giving Morris.

He glanced back at the counter. A little space, or a pleasant distraction. He left Aziraphale to get himself settled on the couch, not missing the disappointed expression when Crowley moved toward the pile of packages. He wanted to tell Aziraphale to fear not, Crowley wasn’t intending to importune on him any further. It was all good things, from here on out.

“Here, try one of these,” Crowley said, opening the box and offering Aziraphale a gingerbread. They were still soft and warm as the day they’d been made, because Satan help them if they weren’t.

“I’m really not hungry,” Aziraphale told him, face going pinched as he sneaked a glance into the back room.

“I’m afraid I shan’t forgive you if you don’t have at least one,” Crowley said, feigning seriousness just for the moment it took Aziraphale to stare at him, stricken.

“Oh, you beast,” Aziraphale cried, flinging himself back against the cushions and crossing his arms.

“Guilty as charged.” Crowley grinned and shook the box at him. “Come on, I promise you’ll like them. I didn’t drive almost all the way to Wales just to come back with disappointing gingerbreads.”

Aziraphale looked away and huffed. “I couldn’t possibly.”

“Sure you can. They’re for you, anyway.” Crowley smiled slyly. “Just one, and I’ll leave you be.”

Aziraphale pursed his lips disapprovingly but took one, watching Crowley as he set the box down on the table between them and collapsed into the chair on the other side. Aziraphale glanced up, flushed slightly, then bit into the gingerbread.

“Oh.” Aziraphale straightened up, the flush darkening. “Oh, my.”

“Told you you’d like it. Chock full of the holiday spirit and--”

“Love,” Aziraphale finished, swallowing.

“As you say,” Crowley said, his grin splitting his face. “Happiest, cheeriest, most sickening place I’ve had the pleasure of staying at for quite some time. You’d lose it just walking in the door, angel. Maybe if you’re good, I’ll drive you up for apple season.”

Aziraphale took another bite, then another, glancing at Crowley from under his lashes. Crowley smirked, extremely pleased with himself for not spoiling it by eating them on the way home. Aziraphale looked almost entirely over the Morris-related upset, calmed by the assurance that Morris’s death wouldn’t be on his conscience and by all the grace-adjacent emotions baked into the gingerbread. By the time Aziraphale finished the third gingerbread, he seemed completely himself again, and Crowley couldn’t help but smile at it.

“Well done with the holly,” Crowley offered, surveying the bookshop’s decoration. A bit much for his tastes, but Aziraphale could probably do with a bit of extra praise, and he’d clearly made an effort to produce the carpet-bomb effect.

“Holly?” Aziraphale asked, tilting his head.

Crowley’s mouth fell open slightly. “Ah. Yeah?” 

He waved his hand at the boughs and sprigs hanging from the banisters and levitating over a good half the shop. Maybe he’d slipped out of the tree after all, and now he was staggering around with a head injury and hallucinating things.

“I think you’ve got a good fifty pounds of it, you can’t tell me it was an accident,” Crowley told him.

“But it’s not…” Aziraphale stopped and exhaled, closing his eyes briefly. “ _Holly?_ Are you sure?”

“Yeah, it’s in the leaves,” Crowley told him, tracing the distinctive shape in the air between them. “Very festive.”

“Mmm.” Aziraphale rubbed his chin, then his eyes, and then he sighed. “Most people, indeed.”

Crowley frowned at the thin, forced smile on Aziraphale’s face. Maybe it was time for the manuscript. His frown deepened as he suddenly realized he couldn’t hand it over along with his thanks for looking after Morris; Aziraphale wouldn’t speak to him for a year if he twisted the knife like that.

“What was it supposed to be, then?” he asked, groping for another distraction. Maybe in this state, Aziraphale would let him get away with just calling it a present--he’d responded well enough to the gingerbread.

Aziraphale bit his lip, his eyes firmly on the box of gingerbread, and then squared his shoulders. It seemed a bit of a production for a decorating mix-up, but then maybe Aziraphale was about to tell him something deeply embarrassing, like mistaking holly for pine boughs or someone having convinced him that deconstructed Christmas trees were in.

“Mistletoe,” Aziraphale said quietly.

“Oh, yeah,” Crowley sighed, shaking his head. “People make that mistake all the time. Shame there aren’t any berries, or the red would have tipped you off right away.”

Poor angel, getting fobbed off with a whole cart-load of holly when he’d been after mistletoe instead. Of course, the aesthetics weren’t that far off, when it was just _green_ that was decking the entire shop. The big wad of it right above the couch was particularly egregious.

Crowley’s heart skipped a few beats as his train of thought finally went screeching off the rails. Aziraphale had meant to blanket the entire shop in mistletoe. Aziraphale was deeply upset about the mix-up. Aziraphale had had to screw up his courage before admitting to it. Crowley cleared his throat.

“But the thing is that even without the berries, the leaves are completely different,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady. 

He got up and retrieved the wrapped bough he’d cut down. _Please, please, please let this be what I think it is._ Six thousand years a demon, and the angel could still get him praying.

He handed the mistletoe to Aziraphale. “You can see how distinct they are, when you can compare the two side by side.”

Aziraphale unwrapped it slowly, not looking at Crowley. Crowley swallowed around the sudden dryness of his mouth, his heart skipping another few beats for good measure. He had half a mind to turn it off for the moment, if it wasn’t going to cooperate. He’d either just gotten himself put in a decade-long time-out for anything more than cordial lunches and polite conversation, or RSVPed to the angel’s engraved invitation to kiss him in every corner of the shop--he didn’t need a runaway heart distracting him while he figured out which it was to be.

Aziraphale ran his hands reverently over the plant, his lips parting slightly. “Crowley, there’s… there’s _power_ in this.”

“Well, you know.” Crowley licked his lips. Harvested with a golden sickle from an apple tree under a crescent moon by a demon who’d meant it--the blessed thing was probably thrumming with it. “Some things are worth doing the right way.”

Aziraphale inhaled slowly, steadying himself, eyes half-closed and barely seeing the plant in his lap. “Why did you--I mean, what is it for?”

“It’s for you, angel,” Crowley told him simply. More literally now than he’d meant it before, now that he saw the avalanche of holly that Aziraphale had meant to be mistletoe. “Put it up wherever you like, yeah?”

Aziraphale snapped his fingers, and the holly over the sofa was replaced with the mistletoe. He looked up at Crowley, lifting his chin to the plant above him. Crowley let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, and of course his lungs had to get in on the act. He grinned, feeling like there was something molten and bright in his heart that hadn’t been there before.

“Customary, innit?” he asked, and Aziraphale flushed prettily and patted the sofa next to him.

He sat down, not needing to be told again, and leaned in only to find Aziraphale plucking off his glasses.

“Your eyes are as lovely as the rest of you,” Aziraphale murmured, as heartbreakingly sincere as he ever was. “I’ve always wanted to see them more.”

“Oh.” It was Crowley’s turn to blush, apparently. “Erm. Can I--”

Aziraphale leaned forward suddenly, mashing their lips together in a clumsy, artless kiss that nevertheless surged through Crowley like steam, like electricity, like a wave pounding him against the rocks. He wrapped his arms around Aziraphale’s waist and pulled him closer, cocking his head so that his nose was out of the way, and then their mouths fit together properly, and Crowley couldn’t for the life of him think why they’d done anything else for six thousand years.

Aziraphale finally sat back after a few minutes of exploratory, gentle kissing. “Oh.”

“I guess that’s one way of putting it,” Crowley agreed. He leaned forward again, and Aziraphale met him eagerly, cupping his chin this time and letting his other hand brush through Crowley’s hair. Crowley let his hands settle on Aziraphale’s hips, and then Aziraphale reached down, grabbed one of Crowley’s hands, and guided it to his own platinum curls.

The angel’s hair was as soft under his touch as he’d always known it would be. He ran his fingers through it, tugging gently where it was long enough to let him, and finally wrapped his hands around the back of Aziraphale’s head. When they broke apart a second time, it was Crowley’s turn.

“Oh,” he sighed, laughing. “Oh, angel.”

“Mmm.” Aziraphale tipped forward to nuzzle at Crowley’s throat, and Crowley squirmed and hugged him closer and somehow that molten feeling was spreading through his whole chest and he wasn’t burning up with it. “Do you have any idea what I went through to get that holly?”

“Went to the florist and paid way too much money?” Crowley guessed, feeling drunk on the way Aziraphale’s breath flowed over his skin like a sweet summer breeze.

Aziraphale laughed, and Crowley tipped his head, stretching out his throat against the puff of it.

“They were out of mistletoe,” Aziraphale said, drawing his lips over the skin Crowley had presented him with. “Every last damned one of them. This awful investment firm had bought them out of it for their holiday party.”

Crowley shivered as Aziraphale sucked gently at his throat, soft fingers digging into his hair.

“So I infiltrated the party, and I stole every last bit of it,” Aziraphale whispered. “All that, and it was _holly_!”

“You wot.” Crowley blinked, a shocked grin blossoming on his face. He leaned back, over Aziraphale’s protests when he had to stop kissing Crowley’s neck. “You…” He looked around at the holly covering the bookshop. “Every last leaf and twig is nicked?”

“Hmph.” Aziraphale smiled crookedly, his eyes mischievous. “I knew you’d like that bit.”

Crowley threw back his head and laughed, and he didn’t stop until Aziraphale wrapped his hands in the front of Crowley’s jacket, pulled him forward, and kissed him so hard he didn’t have any extra breath for it.

“I have to say, angel,” Crowley chuckled, “that so far, I’m liking all the bits.”

Aziraphale’s answering smile was practically impish, and Crowley thought he might never have looked so beautiful. He kissed the corner of Aziraphale’s mouth, then let his head rest on Aziraphale’s shoulder.

“My cunning criminal mastermind, foiled by floral cantankerousness,” he said softly, watching Aziraphale’s throat bob above his collar.

“It’s been a very hard day,” Aziraphale scolded. “You can’t tease me like this.”

Crowley gave into temptation and kissed him just below his ear, and Aziraphale wriggled and laughed, tilting his head immediately to shield himself from Crowley’s ravages. Crowley wound up with his nose in Aziraphale’s hair and couldn’t bring himself to mind.

“Just the tiniest bit of teasing,” Crowley promised. “Surely a hardened Moriarty such as yourself--”

Aziraphale kissed him quiet, and Crowley closed his eyes and didn’t mind it in the least. When Aziraphale let up, Crowley felt like he’d drunk a whole bowl of rum punch by himself.

“Happy holidays, angel,” he said, kissing him lightly. 

Aziraphale’s eyes turned bright and merry, and he kissed Crowley back. “Happy holidays, my dear.”


End file.
